Howard takes a fall in another round of the blame game

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John and Janette Howard flew off to San Francisco, Washington, London and Normandy's D-Day beaches yesterday. They will be gone a week. Before he left, the Prime Minister called a press conference in his high security Parliament House courtyard. What happened next reminded me of George Bush and his bicycle. Read Bob Herbert of The New York Times to see why.

Herbert wrote, in part, a week ago: "President Bush fell off his bike during a 17-mile excursion at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Saturday. Nothing serious. A few cuts and bruises. He was able to climb back on and finish his ride. A little later he left the ranch for a graduation party for his daughter, Jenna. Then it was on to New Haven where daughter Barbara will graduate today from Yale.

"Meanwhile, there's a war on. Yet another US soldier was killed near Falluja yesterday. You remember Falluja. That's the rebellious city the Marines gave up on and turned over to officers from the very same Baathist army we invaded Iraq to defeat.

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"It's impossible to think about Iraq without stumbling over these kinds of absurdities. How do you get a logical foothold on a war nurtured from the beginning on absurd premises?

"You can't. Iraq had nothing to do with September 11. The invasion of Iraq was not part of the war on terror. We had no business launching this war. Now we're left with the tragic absurdity of a clueless President riding his bicycle in Texas while Americans in Iraq are going up in flames . . ."

Our Prime Minister approached yesterday's news conference in much the same high mood I imagine Bush approached his bicycle. Howard strode out of the darkness of his office suite, his face lit with a beaming smile, to confront reporters. His joy at the pending trip - or was it the latest opinion poll? - was palpable. Oh, frabjous day! Up, up and away.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, I leave this afternoon ... I'll call and see the Governor of California. I'll be accompanied by the chairman of BHP-Billiton ... I'm, of course, going to Washington ..." Of course. Blah, blah. Bush, Powell, Cheney. The names rolled out.

" I hope also to meet the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan." More blah, blah. "I guess among other things, if we meet, we may talk about the price of oil and ..." And on and on.

One minute Howard was cycling happily along, blah-blahing away, reciting his itinerary, the important people he would be meeting, the great issues he would be canvassing. Then he asked, "Any questions?" And promptly fell off. Or rather, the press fell on him. Howard has not faced a more hostile press gallery in his entire eight years as Prime Minister.

Would he apologise to the Australian people for having misled them over the extent of Australia's knowledge of Iraqi prisoner abuse? How had the Defence Department got its advice so wrong? Would Howard apologise to the Herald for wrongly claiming it had "conflated" its reports that Australia had known much more about prisoner abuse than it was admitting, and that the newspaper was guilty of "a despicable slur"?

All but five of 27 questions dealt with Iraq. Specifically, how was it someone, either the military, the civilian defence advisers or the Government, has either been lying or grievously incompetent.

Howard's response to everything was to blame someone else. It wasn't his or the Government's fault. "The advice I gave the Parliament and the public was based on advice I'd received from the Defence Department," he insisted. And he went on insisting until, ultimately, he ended the press conference and turned and walked back inside.

Two of the best questions came from The Age's Michelle Grattan. Why hadn't Howard insisted on being "better briefed", especially when the Australian officer who "had all the knowledge, was just down the road" at the Defence Department? And wasn't it a "bit peculiar" that "a couple of Labor senators [John Faulkner and Chris Evans] can get all this information" in a day and a half's questions at Senate estimates, "but the Prime Minister, being charitable, couldn't get it in the last two weeks"?

It was wondrous watching Howard trying to answer.

"I'm sorry, Michelle, but it is simply not possible for someone in my position to talk to every single person," he said lamely. As for Labor's Senate scrutiny, well, "there have been a lot of other things I have been dealing with. And the truth of the matter is, there has never been any allegation of Australian involvement [in prisoner abuse]. Never!"

That is not, and never has has been, the point. The point is, did Australia, militarily or politically, turn a blind eye to what the Americans were doing at Abu Ghraib? It seems the answer could well be we did indeed.